


Like Dust

by wyrvel



Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Erotica, M/M, Pining, Polyamory, Tragic Romance, Trans Male Character, angsty sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-20
Updated: 2017-07-20
Packaged: 2018-12-04 14:35:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11557227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wyrvel/pseuds/wyrvel
Summary: "You missed me too, right?"





	Like Dust

**Author's Note:**

> I can't believe my first ever Bigtime Ship where I'm more engaged in the relationship aspect is a rarepair @ myself why ?
> 
> Listen to [this](http://listenonrepeat.com/watch/?v=k_Pik0YleJQ#Two_Feet_-_Love_is_A_B*tch) for mood-setting

When they first met, they were teenagers, and it ended in bloody knuckles and fire. 

Giotto infuriated Ricardo. He looked so delicate you could blow him away with the slightest huff, a thin lattice of dust and faded thread in the shape of a person.

But _god_ do his kneecaps ever hurt when they collide with your stomach.

They fought often. Giotto was trying to compose _uprisings_ and _rebel forces_ on Ricardo's turf. Ricardo complained to Simora about it, and his brother promised that within the next few days, they wouldn't be seeing that boy around here anymore. The peace would be kept.

Three days later, Simora was marching in Giotto's name. 

Ricardo didn't see the appeal at sixteen. The blond was a rosy-cheeked menace, always greeting him with a placid smile and a clenched fist coated in steel. Ricardo wasn't even sure if Giotto could feel things, or if he was constantly submerged in the serene blankness that shows on his face. Either way, he had to die. Ricardo tried _so hard_ , he really did, but in the end, their last fight ended with Giotto's abrupt disappearance and a profound sense of loss.

Ricardo never gained his territory back. Simora had handed it all over to Giotto when he left, and then ran off to make clocks, or some dumb shit like that. Ricardo got pissed off and hitched a ride with some traders to see if he could make it in the city. He wouldn't see Giotto again for another five years. 

Giotto at twenty-one came attached to a mercenary group the next time they crossed paths, and they called him _Primo_ like he had a legacy waiting for him. Redhead Clown 1 was missing, but the dark-eyed Redhead Clown 2 with lines of tattoos printed over his scars was still there, joined by a priest and some oriental. This infuriated Ricardo. He didn't know why, but Giotto _still_ had to die.

It seemed like old times. Ricardo wasn't sixteen anymore; his screaming rage had cooled into a simmering heat, fueling him as he undercut his enemies rather than overpowering them, but he was still angry and throwing punches, and Giotto was still smiling distantly and barely acknowledging that Ricardo was trying to murder him. 

They fell. Giotto had him pinned, legs set on either side of him, breathing heavily, rosy cheeks stained red and slick with sweat from the effort, which was the best Ricardo had ever gotten out of him. He swallowed thickly, stretched out entirely over Ricardo's form, and raised one hand. His face was distant as always, and Ricardo wanted to _kill_ him.

Giotto's fingers snaked through Ricardo's hair. 

The atmosphere shifted drastically, and Ricardo's stomach bottomed out, less like fear and more like an eternal _squirm_. When they met eyes, Giotto's gaze was dreamy and a little tired. His back rose, like he was going to get up off of him, but then it came down again, onto Ricardo's legs, keeping him pinned.

"Aren't you tired?" Giotto asked breathlessly. "Do you really get anything out of this?"

"Ideally, your corpse," Ricardo grunted back. It sounded more juvenile actually saying it out loud. 

Giotto laughed. Twisting chuckles that curled in his throat. It was rougher than Ricardo imagined his laugh would sound like. (Not that he imagined what Giotto's laugh sounded like.)

Ricardo made to sit up despite how exhausted he was. Giotto held a hand to his chest, soft and spread-out instead of a hard fist against his sternum, and Ricardo found himself easing back again, entranced by the way Giotto's cloudy expression was shifting into a look of extreme intent. Ricardo wasn't sure what you could do with that much intensity besides physically attack someone, and he was curious to find out. 

"I missed you too," Giotto whispered. His breath ghosted over Ricardo's face, making him shiver. The hand on his chest slid down to Ricardo's hip, and Giotto moved forward again, but not up. 

Ricardo's breath caught at the sensation of soft curves dragging along his crotch. His throat crumpled under the tension and let out a thin, confused noise. Giotto's smile crumpled with it, _finally, finally_ , but the expression underneath wasn't desperate in the way Ricardo wanted it to be. 

Giotto slid down and up again, rhythmically, and Ricardo could feel the stimulation rising, and suddenly all he could see was the way Giotto's spine arched and all he could hear was what his breathing sounded like when it was laboured and shaking, and he could hear it up close when Giotto pressed his face into Ricardo's neck. 

Giotto's fingers tugged at Ricardo's belt. Ricardo really did whine then.

_"You missed me, right?"_

 

* * *

 

He asked that every time they met after that. Ricardo did, but since Giotto wanted it from him, he refused to say as much. 

He had always assumed that Giotto was so _above it all_ , mocking him from his heroic freedom fighter nonsense high horse, but Ricardo should have known better than to trust a sixteen-year-old's judgement of character, even if that sixteen-year-old was him. Giotto was not above it all. Giotto was a cluster of stress ulcers and hope held together with the power of friendship and good wine. 

Brawls are a release, but most people would take rough sex over a punch to the face, so that's what ended up happening. It was pretty simple to leap to, because Giotto had a vagina for some reason. Ricardo didn't think there'd be much of a difference either way, but Giotto was, uh. _Enthusiastic_. 'Simple to leap to' is the best case scenario for someone who wanted sex that badly, that quickly.

His friends didn't know. He was a perfect little angel in front of them. _Oh no,_ eyelash bat, _there's simply nothing to be done about Ricardo, like a starving dog, always biting, may as well leave that alone,_ and then Giotto would show up that night and come with deathly quiet. Ricardo liked that, that Giotto never moaned or whimpered, that he always had to strain to hear the shudder, the gasps. Giotto usually stopped breathing if Ricardo was really getting into it. Probably not a good idea.

"You know," Giotto said, one night, turning a plain silver band around his finger, "I wish you could work with us."

"I'd really rather die," Ricardo snorted.

"I'm not asking you to." Giotto peered at him with that stupid placid look. Ricardo knew at this point that it wasn't mocking, or a sign he was some brittle moron. Giotto was just easily distracted by his own inner agony, or whatever the fuck running an anti-mafia vigilante group at twenty-one does to someone like him.

"Then why-" 

"I like spending time with you?" 

"As if you could keep your hands off me for five seconds." 

Giotto's lips thinned, and he had the audacity to look _amused._ "I can't keep my hands off you because we only interact when I need my hands on something." 

"You do put your hands on a lot of things, yes."

Giotto burst out laughing. It was shining and rang in Ricardo's ears long after it passed, and Ricardo watched as Giotto's muscular, cord-like limbs slid over him and up past his face, so Giotto could grasp his hair.

"This part's my favourite." 

Ricardo faked a gasp. "After all the dickings I have provided you-"

Giotto laughed again. He snorted when he did it.

"-That I have _provided you_ , and you don't have the decency to show respect to the body part that you use the most?"

"Yes, your glorious member is quite skilled at having me come undone," Giotto said imperiously, "but the hair makes me happy, so it remains the favourite."

His face was close, so Ricardo pressed their foreheads together just to feel him. Giotto's laugh was soft, then, and brittle, and then nothing at all, because their lips had met. It wasn't rough, or desperate, or passionate. Just a little warm.

"You missed me, right?"

Ricardo did.

Just a little.

 

* * *

 

The line was crossed. 

The line was crossed in blood and fire and Giotto's little soldier boy screaming out for help as he clutched his dead wife (lover?), and it burnt on the way out, slaughtering everyone who would dare, _dare_ , not even to cross Giotto, just the _act_ -

Ricardo stamped out the embers of dissent amongst the mafia in a wash of death, and he met Giotto's eyes and said "Did you miss me?"

It was the first time he'd ever seen Giotto cry.

 

* * *

 

Sex is great in a really big bed.

Giotto wasn't lying about being able to resist jumping Ricardo. The recovery process was professional and reserved, and while Giotto was friendly, he was too occupied with the responsibility of leadership and a bone-deep, agonizing tiredness. He acted like it was the most important thing in the world that he was their Punchable Champion, Hero Of Immense Gorgeous Beauty. 

Giotto was _so_ gorgeous.

Back to the bed, though. When Ricardo managed to pull him away from his fugue of self-loathing and poor task management long enough to get him to unwind, Ricardo got to experience the full benefits a huge bed with firm mattresses and soft blankets. Really, great stuff. Giotto usually started off on the verge of tears, unable to handle the stimulation of a truly fantastic bed only making the great sex even greater, but after he was given some time to breathe and really take in the bounty he had been given, he would relax, in no doubt because his blankets were woven from god's asshairs or something.

Ricardo pulled himself over Giotto like Giotto did to him that first reunion, and pushed Giotto's hair back so he could see his face.

"Did you miss me?" He teased.

It was worth committing himself to his little vigilante operation just to see him smile.

 

* * *

 

Alaudi figured it out first.

Sorry. Correction. Alaudi was the only one to ever figure it out, because the others all ate that 'selfless pure hero' shit up. Especially the little noble twerp. But Alaudi wasn't a person so much as a human incarnation of The Law compressed into mortal form to look stern at people, and Giotto didn't have to feel obligated to perform for someone like that. Alaudi would kill him if he tried it.

When they were out in the street, trying to pick out those associated with the attack against the Vongola, Ricardo met the man first-hand. Sort of. They'd bumped into each other a few times before. He wasn't aware Giotto even knew him that well, until Ricardo's fingers grazed over Giotto's shoulder, and Alaudi's gaze fixed on them with such intensity it practically sliced them open. 

When Giotto pressed onward to continue coaxing out more culprits, Alaudi held Ricardo back. He opened his mouth to speak, and the only thing Ricardo hated more than a cop is a nag, so he cut him off.

"He fucking you too?"

Alaudi froze in place, stunned, maybe a little horrified.

"I...am the officer of the l-"

"He's really into hair-pulling," Ricardo continued, completely ignoring him, "you wouldn't think a guy like that would take it rough, huh?" 

Alaudi's face pinched. Ricardo was aware, then, that they probably _didn't_ have a relationship. He was also aware that he was in the mood to keep talking. _Oh well!_

"He puts on a pretty act, but he's really just as filthy as the rest of us, you know? God, that body is too good to be given out that freely. Give him a little taste and he just opens up his legs-"

Ricardo tastes dirt.

It was worth it to see Alaudi's aura of cool, detached Justice shattered. His anger was the kind of thing Giotto ought to be into. Ricardo cannot _believe_ they're not fucking. Alaudi's grip was hard yet unsteady as he handcuffed Ricardo, and when Giotto pushed his way back to them, he went still, like a startled animal. Ricardo looked up at Giotto and beamed.

Giotto gave him a look of genuine belligerent disgust. It looked wonderful on him.

"What is going on here?"

"I sensed he was going to be too French to stand, so I simply convinced him to speak in my language instead. It went well," Ricardo said cheerfully.

The disgusted look intensifies. 

He turned to Alaudi instead. "Alaudi, we don't have time to squabble like this. Let him go."

Alaudi recoiled. "But he-"

"He was trying to get a rise out of you. Not every criminal under my purview approves of police, strangely enough."

"That's not-"

"I'll punish him later."

Ricardo gave Giotto a sultry look. Giotto grimaced and shook his head, definitely frustrated with Ricardo but not enough to call him on it. Ricardo loved that he could make Giotto feel something within the realm of anger. It felt like a power only he had, untethered by friendship, propriety...

Alaudi yanked him roughly to his feet and uncuffed him. Satisfied, Giotto returned to do his job. Ricardo didn't have half the responsibility, so he tilted his head back to look Alaudi in the eye.

"Sexy when he's mad, isn't he."

"Let me be clear with you." Alaudi's hand snaked up Ricardo's arm, gripped, and twisted up in one severe movement that left Ricardo biting back a scream. "This is not the time to even _play_ at disrespecting him. We're currently cracking down on _multiple_ families, and there is _quite_ a lot of violence going on. If I hear a word of you saying anything like that again, something very, _very_ unfortunate may befall you while Giotto _isn't around to stop it_."

Ricardo laughed. "You'd never."

"You think I couldn't?"

"You could, but you wouldn't." Ricardo stared off in the direction Giotto had left. "Because he would cry."

Alaudi said nothing, because he knew it was true.

 

* * *

 

For example, when that square-jawed little demon clown Giotto called a childhood friend, Cozarto, got sucked into his business and subsequently kicked it, Giotto brought the funeral home with him. He had taken on the same attitude he did when half his family got leveled and Elena died. Ricardo was prepared for this, though - the criminal underworld ate people alive, no matter what you fight for. It was an inevitability.

It wasn't sex that Giotto used to unwind after Cozarto, though. It was fire. 

Ricardo never told anyone about the fire. His blood is pedigree, and his ability was the thing that kept him alive for years. What kept _Giotto_ alive for years. Ricardo had no idea how long Giotto had known about his ability - after the attack on the Vongola, maybe, when he first joined hands with them - but he was still a frame of reference, so he wasn't surprised when Giotto called him to the ballroom in the dead of night.

"I forgot you haven't seen me fight in a while," Giotto hummed, arcing his fingers through a stream of unstable orange. "I'm admittedly quite sloppy. It does help me move faster, though, and I've managed to perfect the opposite while hammering out the kinks."

"The opposite?"

Giotto was tired, but not enough to resist a teasing smirk. His hand flicked, and the orange shifting into glowing ice. Ricardo could feel the sudden shift of temperature against his skin. 

"That's impressive."

" _You're_ impressive. You can use Flames to attack?" 

"So you noticed." Ricardo stretched his fingers out and the slight sting of his aura washed over him. He snapped his fingers for effect, and his Flames ignited. They were intense, a crisp, more reddish sort of orange, but still close in hue. Giotto's icy fingers slid over Ricardo's palm, and Ricardo shivered at the freezing sensation lancing through the burning ache of his flames, at the way the ice pushed back.

"They seemed different, before."

"I was pretty pissed off, before."

"You're not now?" The fingers traveled up his wrist. The sensation was suddenly Ricardo's whole world. The moon emerged from the cloud cover, a cast of almost-blue against the warmth of their glowing hands and defining a small, barely-visible halo of white against Giotto's hair.

Ricardo had never wanted to kiss him more than he did in that moment. It felt intense, it burned, the _need_ -

" _Are_ you pissed off now?"

The deep orange of his Flames had overwhelmed Giotto's ice, broken up with fierce red tongues. Giotto's ice redoubled in response to their destructive force.

Ricardo moved his mouth along Giotto's hairline, and rested their temples side-to-side so he could whisper in his ear. "There are more ways than just anger to get my blood pumping."

Giotto shivered, and his other hand came up to Ricardo's throat, and the coolness of his knuckles as they brushed against his steadily heating skin made Ricardo shiver in turn. "I wanted to train."

Ricardo's other hand curved around Giotto's back. "You wanted to see me burn."

Giotto ran his lips along Ricardo's jawline until their mouths met. 

"Ricardo-"

"Didn't you?"

Giotto's hand spread against Ricardo's collarbones, then down, under his shirt, over his chest. His face was lost. Ricardo wanted to rip the guilt and the grief from his heart so all he could think of was him. "I wonder how long we can maintain this?"

Ricardo's hand hooked on Giotto's buttons. Their other hands - one blazing, one freezing - were clasped in a parody of a ballroom dance, and Ricardo listened to how Giotto's breath shuddered like it was music. 

Ricardo pushed his face forward, and his Flames prickled against his skin. Giotto's mouth tasted sour, and his saliva was thick. He hadn't been drinking enough. He hadn't been eating enough. Ricardo's tongue curled around Giotto's anyway, and their teeth clacked as Giotto pushed back too hard, pinching Ricardo's lip. Ricardo finished with the buttons on Giotto's shirt, exposing his chest, and his skin looked colourless in the moonlight, yet like warm butter in the light of their joined hands.

Giotto shifted Ricardo's shirt from his shoulders, and his hand slid up, over his chest, his shoulder, neck, into his hair. _Your hair makes me happy_ , he had said. 

 _I want to make you happy,_ Ricardo thought.

They didn't usually move this slowly, and when they did, it was a languid second round. They'd never done it with their auras radiating power, either, their intensity made visible. Ricardo's Flames were almost all red, and they made Giotto's shirtsleeve decompose into soft strings, burnt the dust motes in the air. Ricardo pushed Giotto's shirt off so it fell to his elbows, and his eyes raked over the exposed scars, pale lines of risen skin, some of them still red and inflamed.

Ricardo pressed his face against them, kissed them like a blessing. _Why the hell do you punish yourself like this? What do you expect to achieve?_

_I want to make you happy._

The ice was travelling up Giotto's arm, and flames licked along its surface. Ricardo undid Giotto's belt with one hand. He had a lot of practice.

_I'd burn the world for you. Don't make me do it._

The ballroom floor was uncomfortable, and it had to be a nightmare on Giotto's shoulders, but he showed no sign of noticing. He was focused on rubbing against Ricardo, on looking Ricardo in the eye with each grinding rise of his hips. _Rosy-cheeked_ , Ricardo remembered thinking, _like he was made of dust_. That was never true, but Ricardo thought of how easy it would be to break Giotto in that moment. He would shatter like glass if he tried it.

But Ricardo could never. From the beginning he could never, even when he was only sixteen.

Giotto's teeth clenched as Ricardo pushed into him, and their united hands flickered and sent out flares of bright, vivid fire, and suddenly silence wasn't enough for him, he needed _more_. He pushed harder, and when Giotto's breath caught-

"Stop that," Ricardo whispered. He hated how broken he sounded.

Giotto's brow furrowed, and Ricardo admired how his hair looked fanned out over the marble floors. 

"Stop holding back. I want to hear it." Their foreheads met, sweaty and feverish, even with the ice competing with Ricardo's blaze. "I want to hear your voice." 

Marble floors were hell on the elbows too, but Ricardo ignored it so he could feel his body against Giotto, the hard lines of muscle and soft press of his chest and inner thighs, more and more of him, and he could finally hear it.

Giotto's moans were soft and thready and choked with tears. 

When Ricardo froze, Giotto whispered "keep going."

Ricardo moved again, and Giotto's gasps found stability, words, _more, Ricardo, please,_ and it was the most beautiful fucking thing Ricardo had heard in his life. He didn't know how he went without all these years. Ricardo's blood ran hot, and his Flames blazed, and even with their full destructive force, they never broke through Giotto's ice, never touched his skin.

 _I love you,_ Ricardo thought, and drowned the thought in the crook of Giotto's neck.

 

* * *

 

Ricardo was still sitting in the ballroom an hour after Giotto left. 

The door creaked open. He looked up to Alaudi, holding a rag and a bucket. His face was unreadable.

"Clean up after yourself," Alaudi said, voice betraying nothing. "Candlewax, too."

Ricardo pulled his shirt back on and snatched the cloth out of Alaudi's hands.

"Don't give me that look," Ricardo said hoarsely, "you know you could take better care of him than I ever could."

Alaudi's expression flickered, but Ricardo hadn't spent enough time caring about what other people think to decipher the look on his face.

He cleaned up, he went to bed, and he replayed the sound of Giotto's voice in his head until morning.

 

* * *

 

Ricardo thought the worst part of the meeting was that Alaudi was nicer to him now, so he was just as awkward as Asari, Knuckle, and Giotto were when Spade slammed his hand against the table and shouted _"do you want Elena to happen again?"_

"Of course not," Giotto said softly. 

"Then what precautions have you taken to keep it from happening again? New enemies will rise in the ashes of our old ones, and it wasn't you that burnt them out, hunted them down. It was _us_."

Ricardo didn't know why Spade had to involve him. He was perfectly happy trailing after Giotto like the rest of the dogs. He was no better than his brother in that respect. He wasn't sure where his pride went to die, but it has been a _fantastic_  six years without it. 

"Giotto gave you _everything_ ," G gritted out.

_"And it wasn't enough."_

Ricardo made eye contact with Alaudi, because G still didn't like him, and Ricardo didn't like G all that much either. They shared a moment of mutual understanding, and Alaudi stood. The table fell silent.

"I agree," said Alaudi. 

_"WHAT-"_

"G," Giotto said warningly. He looked so tired. "Let him speak."

"Giotto has done his work. Changing tactics now that we've been established is a necessary evil." 

Beside him, Spade lost all his tension. His worries were genuine, as intense as they were. Ricardo could respect that.

"I'm willing to moderate the family as an external advisor to make sure you don't move away from our original goals, but I'm willing to admit a shift in leadership may be more effective. Just because Giotto is willing to press the matter doesn't mean that our enemies know that. Inserting a new leader and defining that person by their willingness to commit violence will put the Vongola back into a position of control."

 G looked like he wanted to say something. Giotto just looked lost. 

"Then leadership should go to someone already known for violence," Spade said slowly. 

"Ricardo." 

All eyes landed on Ricardo. Ricardo wondered if he'd get to say goodbye. When he met Giotto's eyes, he felt dead inside. 

"I'll do it," he said.

He hoped he'd make Giotto cry.

 

* * *

 

Ricardo wished he hadn't spent so much time thinking of Spade as Giotto's little soldier boy. He was very, _very_ good at picking targets.

Not all Flames were born equal, and Spade's were insidious and clinging. He could use them to control people, and he drove people like a rich man drove his automobiles. Ricardo couldn't remember the last time he saw Spade inside his actual body.

Vongola became violence. A warning. _Things will be different now, and if you resist, we will burn you._  

Ricardo was so fucking tired. He _wished_ he had a pining friend to fuck on hand.

Three years and a lull.

Ricardo sent one letter to Giotto's home in Japan in that time, and he got one back. 

A more sensible man would be relieved upon discovering that Giotto was free with his love, that he was willing to embrace G (actually, no relief there, because that is absolutely _shit_ taste in men) just as much as he was Alaudi. Ricardo wasn't sensible, though, and he decided to be contrite instead. He knew Giotto was the type of person to be like that, so open and all-consuming that it was like the sky crashing down on you every time he smiled, but the problem is, Ricardo was possessive.

He'd never be happy until he owned Giotto, but it was like trying to possess the ocean drowning you. Pointless.

Ricardo still made Alaudi take him to visit.

They lived in a big house in a rural town. Ricardo didn't know what Asari's relationship with Giotto was, and he suspected that if he asked, Asari would give him that expression, the _"I could look calm if Giotto stabbed me in the heart but you're really pressing me right now"_ one, so Ricardo opted not to. 

Giotto had two kids. One per person who loved him, and received love in return. It's like he was mocking Ricardo.

Ricardo was ostensibly there to ask if he was doing anything against Giotto's values, but he doubted any of them believed him when he told them as much. G looked smug. Alaudi didn't. Ricardo couldn't believe he ever disliked Alaudi. 

When Giotto came home with new wrinkles in his strange oriental clothing, Ricardo felt like he was on the verge of tears. The empty feeling inside him vanished like it was never there.

Giotto's smile was wet and trembling and beautiful and Ricardo wished he could stare at it forever. _"Ricardo."_  

"Hey," he said, "you missed me, right?"

 

* * *

 

"The hair," G howled over his bottle of sake. Giotto was sleeping, and Asari used his arcane Byronic Angst sensor to lock both Alaudi and Ricardo in the house with them, so alcohol was a necessity. "he _loves_ the hair." 

"I told you," Ricardo said, pointing at Alaudi.

"You didn't tell me, you mocked me with it." 

"But it was _true_."

"I had to grow it out. He likes braiding it almost as much as he likes yanking on it." G gestured to how his locks curled over his shoulders in a curtain of washed-out red, like blood in water. Ricardo thought  _I did that too,_ but then he realized how much that would expose him, and kept quiet.

"He never grows his out. Do you think he ever would?" Asari asked.

G snorted. "Oh, no, he loves it mid-length. He might style it, though." 

"What kind of styles are popular back in Europe?" 

"Just braid it. Braids are timeless." 

"You think he has enough for a bun?" 

"Wait, I think I remember this type of braid that was popular in our hometown, how did it go-"

They talked over each other, bounced off one another, smiled when they spoke of Giotto without a single mention of the agony of taking the world upon oneself. It's as if that aspect of their relationship never existed at all. It was just Giotto and them, retired in the countryside, living peacefully.

 _Giotto is happy here,_ Ricardo realized.

He really managed to make Giotto happy after all.

Ricardo could drink to that.

 

* * *

 

It took him another six years before he could visit again. Giotto sent one of his kids to live with Simora, but he didn't know which one, and he refused to go and check. Ricardo ended up being closer to Alaudi than he was Spade, but the work remained violent and unforgiving. Visiting Japan wasn't just tying up loose ends, it was a vacation.

There was another baby, a little boy, tanned darker than the other two. More importantly, the other two were still living in Japan, which meant that Giotto had two other kids while Ricardo was gone. Ricardo wished he would stop doing that.

G had stopped being intolerable at some point, and didn't even look up when Giotto decided to wander off to show off his new country to Ricardo. Ricardo's relief at the peace they found gave way to bitter jealousy. Just two weeks prior, he had to beat a man to death with a melting metal beam and rehome his wife and children. He doubted he'd even live long enough to get this kind of retirement.

They stopped by a basin, overlooked by a church. Some of it had fallen away, and it likely wouldn't survive a rainstorm. Most of the area had been cleared out in anticipation of it falling to ruin. They sat on the steps, moonlight casting a familiar glow to Giotto's features. 

"Who are the parents?" Ricardo asked, before he could stop himself.

Giotto looked sidelong at him. His wrinkles were getting deeper. They used to pool around his eyes, giving him deep crow's feet, but they're all over his face now. He aged so quickly. Ricardo hadn't noticed. He had seemed so untouchably beautiful. He still did. 

"Ricardo..."

"I'm expressing curiousity-"

"Ricardo-"

"It's been a few years, you can-" 

" _Ricardo_." Giotto gripped Ricardo's wrist tightly, and smiled so softly Ricardo wanted to flinch away. "Ricardo, they're both yours."

The silence between them felt like it was thrust upon Ricardo, like it had crawled into his mouth and slid down his throat, crushing his voice until it ached. Intellectually, he didn't know what he felt, but physically, tears prickled at his eyes, so he had a pretty good idea. 

Giotto's grip tightened. "They were twins. I thought it was the only way to leave myself behind. I thought- I thought Simora told you." 

Ricardo would have known, if he hadn't made it clear that he didn't want to hear anything about Simora's newest child. If he hadn't avoided the thought of Giotto having a life outside of him, moving on without him, always staring off into the middle distance, looking for new things to save.

Ricardo was always right here, a constant in the face of that one little child, slightly darker than the others. Ricardo had always belonged.

He wished Giotto belonged.

"That's not fair."

He wished he could reach Giotto without burning him.

"Ricardo..."

"That's not fair. _Christ_." Ricardo brushed away the tears running down his cheeks. His face felt hot, even in the night chill. _"Christ."_

Giotto's fingers were just as cold as they were in the ballroom, even without the ice. They threaded through Ricardo's hair, at first, then down to cup his cheek. His eyes were misty, but he was still smiling. "I missed you." 

New tears replaced old ones. When was the last time Ricardo ever cried? God, he must have been a child. Fucking awful.

"You missed me too, right?" 

Even then, with time to ease the intensity, Ricardo didn't think he'd ever be able to love Giotto without possessing him, and in that moment, it was the most tragic thing in the world. 

"I love you," Ricardo rasped.

Giotto laughed, and his tears spilled over too.

"I'm sorry I did this to you," Giotto whispered. "I'm sorry it's been like this-" 

"And I _missed_ you-"

"It's been like this for so long, and I thought I could stop it," the smile cracked and fell away, and Giotto pressed his face against Ricardo before he could see how wrecked he looked. "and in the end I left that world just as awful as it was when I entered it."

"That's not true." Before Giotto, rehoming the wife and kids wouldn't have been a part of the melting-metal-beam beating. 

"You didn't deserve this," Giotto gasped. His voice was thin and reedy and more hurt than Ricardo had ever heard it, even when half the people he loved had died in one night. "You didn't deserve any of this. I'm so sorry, _I missed you_." 

Ricardo wondered how long Giotto had loved him. Ricardo wondered if it even mattered at all. Ricardo wondered how long he could last as the Vongola head, and he wondered what his kids were doing right now, living without their father, and yet existing as a constant reminder that Ricardo was there in some way. Immortalized in a tiny little face. They'd be there when he was gone.

Ricardo buried his face into the crook of Giotto's neck, and he committed the sound of Giotto's voice to memory. 

He could never settle down, but he had this. And he'd keep it. He'd keep it as long as he could.

_"I missed you."_

 

* * *

 

It's pretty hard to breathe. Once the fire starts spreading, it might even be enough to burn him inside out.

Ricardo can't believe he really made it to forty, and that at forty, he managed to clear this many people in hand-to-hand combat. He was anticipating some sort of decline, but fortunately, he never stopped being great at his job.

He's a little stupid though, so there's that.

"Where's the ring, Ricardo," the boss spits. Ricardo doesn't recall the name of their family. He was a little busy taking care of the bigger threat.

Thankfully, Alaudi _isn't_ stupid, and he had insisted on taking the Vongola boss ring. Ricardo thinks Alaudi had insisted to patronize him, but the Vongola ring has a melting point, and this is the biggest attack Ricardo has headed since he took the seat, so he thought hey, really may as well.

He eyes the wall of people, all carrying guns. He could burn them out effortlessly, but bullets move very, very quickly. 

He closes his eyes. He thinks of moonlight, the way it seemed to wash the colour out of Giotto's features, the way the shadows were so soft, so gentle on his scar-carved skin. He thinks of Giotto's voice. He imagines what it would be like with their hands joined, and their Flames burning together as one. He imagines what it would be like if he never met Giotto, and he figures he likes this version of events a lot better.

 _I'm so sorry, I miss you,_ says the Giotto in his head.

"I'm sorry," Ricardo says out loud to the ceiling. "I'm sorry. I'll miss you too."

_"What was that?"_

"You didn't deserve this either." His hands were always so cold, and Ricardo can almost feel them now, through his hair. He wishes he remembered how Giotto smelled. That would have been nice. It smells fucking awful in here. "I love you."

"You don't have to be giving your last words, Ricardo. Just give us the ring." 

Ricardo's eyes fall down to the window overlooking the warehouse. Alaudi's weapons aren't faster than guns, and the fire is more intense around the walls. He won't make it. But he doesn't have to.

"Be sure to tell him that, okay?" Ricardo says with a smile. 

He can't see Alaudi move through the heat waves, but he can hear the tinkle of broken glass, so he knows he heard him. 

Ricardo turns back to the group, takes a deep breath of burnt oxygen, and holds up his bare hands. 

"Sorry, what ring?"

He's not faster than bullets.

But he's not the Vongola boss for nothing, and a few dozen bullets isn't enough to stop him from burning the world around him to ashes. 

He hopes Giotto cries. 

He hopes his kids are happy. 

He hopes Giotto will miss him when he's gone. 

It all falls to dust, and his vision goes dark before the ceiling can even hit the ground.


End file.
